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Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and Their Clinical Applications in Asthma

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Genomic Approach to Asthma

Part of the book series: Translational Bioinformatics ((TRBIO,volume 12))

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Abstract

Asthma is a chronic lower respiratory tract disease with strong heterogeneity, both environmental and genetic factors contribute to its development, progress and exacerbation. More than 10 years ago, Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) was developed and used broadly to study the genes related to asthma susceptibilities and responsiveness to asthma medications. In this chapter, the development and evolution of GWAS from previous approaches for new genetic biomarker discovery will be introduced, followed by its applications in asthma. Furthermore, the major limitations of GWAS and the potential solutions will also be discussed. Although GWAS has been successfully applied in finding the asthma-associated loci, however, more potential applications in the fields of understanding the asthma pathogenesis and guiding the treatments still need to be considered.

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Liu, X., Jia, Y. (2018). Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and Their Clinical Applications in Asthma. In: Wang, X., Chen, Z. (eds) Genomic Approach to Asthma. Translational Bioinformatics, vol 12. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8764-6_3

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